Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers (TKR) con­tin­ued on their mer­ry way at this year's Hero Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL), record­ing their sev­enth suc­ces­sive vic­to­ry as they tum­bled the Ja­maica Tallawahs by 19 runs at the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my (BLCA) in Tarou­ba, San Fer­nan­do, on Tues­day.

SCORES: TKR 184/4 (20) ver­sus Ja­maica Tallawahs 165/6 - TKR won by 19 runs.

First­ly, runs came back to the CPL as the pitch at the BLCA al­lowed for prop­er stroke-mak­ing and a to­tal of 349 runs were scored in the match. The TKR ac­count­ed for 184 of those which was enough to de­fend as the Tallawahs were re­strict­ed to 165/6 de­spite the pres­ence of An­dre Rus­sell at the end.

The Tallawahs, prob­a­bly think­ing along the lines of the pitch play­ing slow and low, won the toss and sent TKR in to bat. Af­ter the first over they would have been won­der­ing about that de­ci­sion be­cause 17 runs came, as Sunil Nar­ine plun­dered 16.

Nar­ine's five fours and a six were then met with de­fen­sive prods and run­ning be­tween the sticks. He would go on to blast 29 off 11 balls but the Tallawahs came back in­to the con­test while the strug­gling Lendl Sim­mons con­tin­ued to work his way back to form and the man of the match, Col­in Munro, found his feet. This af­ter the South-African born New Zealand in­ter­na­tion­al crick­eter was lucky not to lose his wick­et on four af­ter Jer­maine Black­wood dropped a sim­ple catch.

How­ev­er, the pitch was too sump­tu­ous for bat­ting and Munro dug in, he start­ed to send balls fly­ing and al­though he lost Sim­mons for a 28-ball 25, the run rate was good enough.

As Munro warmed to the task un­der the sear­ing heat at the BLCA, skip­per Kieron Pol­lard came in to bash the ball bru­tal­ly. Munro end­ed with 65 falling off the last ball of the in­nings and Pol­lard was 33 not out. Munro's runs came off 54 balls with 10 fours and a six, while Pol­lard on­ly need­ed 16, hit­ting three in­to the stands and one rolling over the ropes.

The Tallawahs need­ing to win the en­counter to en­sure they keep their hopes of get­ting in­to the semi­fi­nals alive, then had the worst pos­si­ble start, as they lost Chad­wick Wal­ton off the very first ball of the in­nings. Wal­ton trudged off know­ing that his team tried with him, as all he could gar­ner af­ter sev­en in­nings are 14 runs.

Khary Pierre, the oth­er part of the left-arm spin pair, then grabbed a wick­et in his first over as well and this crip­pled the Pow­er­play bat­ting. With the Tallawahs los­ing wick­ets reg­u­lar­ly, it was dif­fi­cult to mount an on­slaught.

In the end, Rus­sell and Car­los Brath­waite pulled the trig­ger too late and they fell 19 runs short. Glenn Phillips who kept the runs com­ing among the ear­ly car­nage got 41 off 31 balls with two six­es and a four and Rus­sell end­ed with 50 not out 23 balls with four six­es and five fours.

Brath­waite al­so did his part with the wil­low, 21 not out off 16, to add to his two wick­ets ear­li­er.

The Tallawahs now have to win their fi­nal three match­es to stand a chance of mak­ing the semi­fi­nals. They have won on­ly two from sev­en match­es.

SCORES:

TKR 184/4 (20) (Col­in Munro 65, Kieron Pol­lard 33no, Sunil Nar­ine 29, Lendl Sim­mons 25, Car­los Brath­waite 2/36) vs JA­MAICA TALLAWAHS 165/6 (20) (An­dre Rus­sell 50 no, Glenn Phillips 41, Nkrumah Bon­ner 26, Car­los Brath­waite 21no, Fawad Ahmed 2/21) - TKR won by 19 runs.

Man of the match: Col­in Munro.